Dr. Mary Hicks

Biography

Mary Hicks is a historian of the Black Atlantic, focusing on transnational histories of race, slavery, capitalism, and migration that shaped the early modern world. Her book, Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery, 1721-1835, reimagines the history of Portuguese exploration and colonization through the perspective of enslaved and freed black seamen who labored in the transatlantic slave trade. Hicks argues that these Atlantic world's subaltern cosmopolitans, such as black mariners, were integral in forging a unique commercial culture linked to the politics and economies of people from Salvador da Bahia to the Bight of Benin. She interrogates the multiple connections between West Africa and Brazil through the lens of mutual cultural, technological, commercial, intellectual, and environmental influences, aiming to redefine historians' understanding of the experiences of enslavement during the Middle Passage. In addition to investigating the lives of African sailors, her research explores the cultural and religious sensibilities of enslaved and freed African women living in 19th-century Salvador da Bahia. Prof. Hicks received her B.A. from the University of Iowa and her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She has been awarded the Jefferson Fellowship and has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Hutchins Center at Harvard University.

Research Interests